


Tuned

by Renegon_Paragade



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Biotic Acclimation and Temperance Training, Biotics, Earthborn (Mass Effect), M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Soul Bond, Spacer (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-10 00:05:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12899754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renegon_Paragade/pseuds/Renegon_Paragade
Summary: Every biotic knows their tune, the hum of the dark energy that courses through their veins, no two ever quite the same. According to legend, if you're very lucky, or very, very unlucky, you just might find someone tuned to your frequency, someone who turns your song into a symphony.John grew up with Asari fairytales. Kaidan grew up with grim reality. Neither were ready for the truth.





	Tuned

**Author's Note:**

> Just to be extremely clear: When biotics are tuned, it does NOT necessarily mean that there is a romantic bond. The nature of tuned biotics will be explained in later chapters, but seeing as this one deals with a bond situation that is very wrong if it's romantic, I just wanted to make it clear. There is NO romantic or sexual relationship from the bond described in italics

   The hum starts low, blending into the sounds of the ship, just another vibration traveling through his body. Even as it grows in intensity, he doesn’t realize, too used to the hum of his own biotics, too focused on the preflight checks Moreau has him running. In fact, he might have missed it if the other man hadn’t spoken up.

   “Alenko, if you don’t stop, I’m going to swap you out for Presley.” The pilot doesn’t even look up from his own checks, missing the incredulous look from the Lieutenant.

   “Stop what?”

   “The humming. Seriously, it’s distracting. Makes me think something’s wrong with the ship.”

   Kaidan furrows his brows. “I’m not humming.”

   “Yes you are. It’s definitely coming from you.” Finally the pilot looks at him, but his annoyed expression quickly shifts to nervous surprise. “Whoa man, no need to flare at me, it’s no big deal. I can work around it.”

   Kaidan scans the other man, not getting the joke. “What are you even talking about?”

   “Uh, you’re glowing, Alenko.”

   Kaidan looks down at his hands, eyes widening in shock to find them wrapped in the familiar blue haze. He fruitlessly tries to shut them down, repress them back under his skin, but there’s no luck. The space in his head normally reserved for controlling his biotics is already filled.

   Filled with a hum that was definitely not his own.

   Kaidan shoots out of his chair, eyes wide. “No no no no no,” he mutters, backing away from the pilot who has now turned his chair completely to face the panicking biotic.

   “Kaidan,” Moreau says, slowly, carefully, as if he were talking to a scared dog and not a trained marine. “What’s going on? Do you need me to page the doctor?” His hands hover over the intercom button, obviously preferring that option.

   “I-” Kaidan’s voice breaks, fear and despair seeping into it. “No, I don’t know, I just-”

   “Joker, I need you to call Chakwas to the de-con now, something’s wrong with She-” Even in his panic, Kaidan recognizes the voice of David Anderson as he enters the bridge. Somehow, Kaidan’s already infinite despair grows. Of course his CO would make it back just in time to watch Kaidan lose it. “Oh, hell, not him too. What’s going on?”

   “I don’t know sir. Alenko was fine one minute and the next he just started humming and flaring all over the place.” Even Moreau has dropped his normally cock-sure attitude for worry.

   “Call Chakwas. Whatever is going on here, we need her.” The command in his tone softens as he turns his attention to Kaidan. “Alenko, can you hear me? Can you tell me what’s happening?"

   Kaidan shakes his head violently, trying to clear it. He tries to get the words out but he can’t entire body, mind, and soul focusing instead on the humming gradually wrapping around his own. Like a lover’s embrace upon meeting again after being long parted. Like a python’s grip as it chokes the life from its prey.

   Like both.

   “Damn. Alright, let me check on-” His voice cuts off as heavy footsteps rapidly approach from the decontamination chamber. “Shepard, I told you to stay in there, what are you-”

   Kaidan doesn’t listen to the rest of the sentence, whipping around to meet the newcomer’s eyes, color obscured by their own flair, glowing with dark energy and child-like excitement.

   Maybe, if Kaidan had met him eighteen years ago, Kaidan would have been excited too.

   His breath catches, and he knows the other man’s does as well, their bodies already synced as one. They move together, closing the gap as the humming grows until it’s the only thing he can hear, tangling with his own until he doesn’t know where his stops and the other’s begins. There’s no difference, not anymore.

   They collide like galaxies, slamming into each other and mixing until no one could tell what pieces were once whose. Kaidan may have height but the other man has strength, yanking the Lieutenant down by his neck and connecting their lips in a way that would have been painful if either cared. Kaidan gives as good as he gets, pulling him flush, not even feeling the fatigues that should have been in their way. It's just the two of them, the one of them, nothing and no one else.

   Eventually, the need to breath overcomes the rush and they both pull away, resting their foreheads together as the flares die down and the hum fades to the usual background noise that Kaidan is used to occupying space in the back of his mind, with the new addition of the man’s own tangled with it.

   “Well, that was definitely... something.” Leave it to Moreau to state the obvious. But it's enough to snap them back to reality, and now Kaidan is aware that, despite what his mind might think, there _is_ more than just this man in the universe.

   Most notably, there is the pilot, commanding officer, and chief medical officer they had just made out in front of.

   Fuck.

 

* * *

 

_It had started the same the last time, a hum creeping up on him as a lion stalks its prey. He hadn’t even questioned it when he flared; he and most of the other kids had been doing it on and off since the suits had shown up six years ago to drag them away, an uncontrollable reaction to the stress of being forced from their homes and families, the stress of being called uncontrollable monsters, the stress of test after test proving them right._

_No, he didn’t notice anything, 15-year-old mind still very much a child’s, still untrained in the soldier’s art of survival. He didn’t notice anything, until he noticed everything. Until he locked eyes with the Turian who swaggered into the room with a bravado that practically screamed ‘mercenary.’ Until the hum rose up, tangled mess of his own and an intruder as they clash in chaotic disharmony, each trying to force the other to mold to its tune. Until he felt his blood run cold with unreasonable fear, slowly winning out against the boiling heat of unjustifiable anger._

_The alien stalked towards him, making a show of walking up and down the line of nervous children, but his eyes never left Kaidan’s. When he reached the boy he finally stops, tall, bony frame squaring up to small, squishy one. Only then did he speak._

_"My name is Commander Vyrnnus. I was at the helm of the dreadnaught that killed your father.”_

_Kaidan couldn’t help but let the boil win out: biotics did run hot, after all. “My father is still alive,” he growled, as close to matching the Turian’s voice as he can, using the now screaming hum’s battle cries as substitute subharmonics._

_He didn’t see the punch coming. It blindsided him, knocked him on his ass and out cold. When he woke up sometime later, Vyrnnus was gone, leaving behind two things Kaidan would have for the rest of his life: a cut across his lips, edges talon smooth, promising a neat scar, and the knowledge that he hadn’t_ _seen the punch coming._

_He’d_ felt it _._

**Author's Note:**

> Updates will be sporadic due to essays and finals, but I do plan to continue this.


End file.
